Why did Jesse Lee Soffer leave Chicago PD? Will Halstead return?

Chicago PD Halstead

Why did Jesse Lee Soffer leave Chicago PD and his role of Jay Halstead? You better believe we’re still asking this question. Beyond just that, though, we’re adding another to the mix: Whether or not a return could be possible down the road.

Let’s start things off by addressing the former part of this. Soffer has yet to address the reasoning behind his departure, but there is no reporting out there that suggests it was a personal decision by him to exit the show. Meanwhile, it’s hard to imagine the producers wanting to eradicate one of their most-popular people from the world of this show. Go ahead and take these two ideas off the table … what remains? That this was a decision made by the higher-ups for a wide array of potential reasons. It could be financial in nature more than anything else, as the show dropping a longtime series regular means, effectively, that they have a significant amount of costs savings.

Now, let’s get into a potential return. It feels like the writers last week specified a very particular amount of time for Halstead’s exit so that they could leave the door open for him to come back a little later on, potentially at the end of this season. They didn’t kill Jay off, and nor did they break up him and Upton. His wife and his brother are both in the Windy City and it’d be out of character for him to be gone for good. We personally think that we’re either going to see him back or at least have him addressed again down the road.

We can’t speak to whether or not Soffer will ever be a part of the Chicago PD world again full-time, but it just feels impossible to believe that we’ve seen or heard the last of him. After everything the character’s gone through and the relationships he has, him abandoning the world he knows and loves for good makes zero sense.

Related Be sure to get some other updates on Chicago PD, including more on what the future holds

Are you still sad that Jesse Lee Soffer is not a main part of Chicago PD anymore?

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